Sunday, 25 February 2018

Yonaka and Don Broco @ O2 Academy Leeds 17.02.18

The second gig me and Lizzie went to in our Weekend O' fun was my current obsession, Donny B. Don Broco just dropped third album Technology, and I loved all the songs on there, so I was Hyped Up for this gig. And I was right to be excited- it was such a good night.

We got to the venue on time-ish, but not as early as I'd like, so sadly the queue took so long that we missed the opening act Press to Meco, although they sounded pretty good so I'll have to check them out.Yonaka// Yonaka are a band I've been hearing of a bit recently, although it took me until this gig to get into them. The band were great, but their lights were so so bright, it took me out of enjoying the show because my eyes were watering so much. Definitely going to listen to these guys more though, they were fun and had great energy. I was happy to see their weird flail-dancing, and their songs, especially bubblegum and ignorance, are really and truly stuck in my head.Don Broco// Of course, everyone was really hyped for the main event, Don Broco. They played all their hits and also a good few from the new album. A few I was really hoping for didn't get played though, like new songs "Something to drink" and "The Blues" and my old fave "further". But all the songs they did play were amazing. The crowd was really into it, and their new songs are so fun to hear live, which I believe is what the boys were going for when they wrote this new album.
Me and Lizzie started off close to the front, but there was a huuuge circle pit and the crowd was a bit insane, so we decided to move a bit further back. Not a huge fan of O2 academy leeds as a venue tbh, once you're under the balcony at the back it gets a bit harder to see, but we still had a good enough view to have a good time- we screamed all the lyrics, jumped around and spun our T shirts over our heads proudly.

The crowd were really into it, everyone was screaming like idiots and everyone also started chanting "yorkshire" spontaneously.... which is v cute. I like people being proud of Leeds, Leeds is bloody brilliant. And Rob said that they misheard it as "You're shxx" the first couple of times they played Leeds, which made me laugh a lot. Also in the theme of 'crowd antics', someone in the pit definitely had brought a spatula and ladle with them. I want to know the story behind it :')

I was dead sad when they reached the end of their set- I'd been really looking forward to seeing Broco again since November at Ally Pally, which they completely smashed. But I've got some other gigs planned, so onwards and upwards, right?

Of course, I had to nab me a band shirt! I've got too many black band shirts, so this peach one makes a welcome change of colour.

Don Broco just get better every time I see them, and they're such a cool band to see, so I'm really excited to catch them again. Hopefully they'll announce a UK festival appearance soon. Definitely gonna try and see them play Sheffield in April.